Gary McMahon - The Concrete Grove

“Okay, I’ll just dump this slag and be right with you.” Her face came into view, over the shoulder of a thin black man in a sparkly shirt that made Boater want to reach out and slap him. She looked afraid, as if she knew what they had in mind for Lana Fraser. “In fact, I’ll probably be there even quicker than that.” He smiled, but somewhere inside he was aware of something tugging as it threatened to break: a small hand, tightening around his guts. The smile felt wrong, as if it had been manufactured. It didn’t quite fit his bloated face. “Just let me deal with this situation, and I’m gone.”

Static crawled along the connection, reaching for him. More small hands, but these ones made up of sound. Then, just as quickly, the static cleared. “Okay,” said Monty. “Don’t be late or we’ll get this show on the road without you.”

The line went dead but the words hung there, like objects suspended in the darkness of space.

Boater put away his mobile and finished his pint. Then he looked at the girl, wishing for a moment that he knew what to say, how to act like other people. He jerked his head, indicating that she should follow him, and then he set off for the main entrance, barging people out of his path.

“G’night, Boater,” said the tall, lean doorman who was lounging against the wall to his right. Boater couldn’t remember his name, but he might have sparred with him years ago.

Boater turned around, glared at him. A dull, uninspired rage moved through him, coiling like snakes. “What was that, fella?”

The man’s eyes flickered — whatever confrontation was brewing, he had already lost. That was all it took: a faltering glance, a tiny show of weakness. “Nothing… just saying goodnight, like.”

Boater squared up to him, straightening his back so that he reared to his full height and with his chest pushed outwards, narrowing the space between them. “No. What did you say, exactly? What were the exact words you just said to me?” He clenched his hands into fists; they were like steel, the joints between fingers sealed shut, welded with sweat.

“I… I just said ‘G’night, Boater’.” The man took a step back, his spine hitting the wall. That was another show of weakness, his second within the space of a minute; an unforgivable act of defeat that could not go unpunished.

“I’m Mr . Boater.”

The doorman nodded, looking to his friends for assistance. He raised his hands, but they were open; he held out his palms, surrendering before the fight had even begun.

Boater didn’t even need to look over his shoulder to know that the other two doormen would not intervene. He was a known face; his violence was both feared and emulated all across the region. Nobody fucked with Francis Boater, not unless they wanted their face remade into a sculpture of flesh and bone and their family beaten like dogs. He didn’t know where to stop; violence was his fuel, his food. He lived to hurt, to cause pain. It had always been his way. That’s why Monty Bright had brought him in, trained him up, and trusted him with his life.

“That’s Mr . Boater, you piece of shit.” His hand moved so fast that he barely registered the motion. He was so keyed-up, so attuned to the moment, that he didn’t even feel the impact of the blows, just knew in his heart that they had landed true. He saw a splash of red, a blur of pink, and a flurry of spastic movement… then the man went down, hitting the floor like a felled tree.

It was over in seconds. Barely anyone had seen it happen, and those who did failed to understand what they had glimpsed: the raw, brute power of the blows, the finality of the knockout, and the strange compression of time and energy which resulted in Boater walking away the victor. He was always the victor; nobody he had ever met could even come close to besting him.

He left the building, trusting that the girl would follow. They always did. It never failed him, the allure of violence. Not with this type; not with a girl like this one, who always mistook savagery for heroism and confused a beating with a show of passion. He hated her; hated them all. These bitches, these bastards: these fucking empty shells tottering around with nothing on their minds but badly dyed hair.

“Where are we going, Fran?”

He was facing the thick black tongue of the River Tyne, watching people caper like cartoon characters on the other side, waiting in line to enter The Tuxedo Princess, the decommissioned car ferry that now served as a grotty floating nightclub. He refused to turn around, to look at her, but she insisted. Her hand clutched his arm, pulling at him, trying to get his attention.

He focused on the boat and the fact that it was soon to be sent to Greece, where it would probably be scrapped. He’d once worked the door there, pushing around scrawny students and estate kids, flexing his muscles to make the men shake and the women giggle. The end of an era; another local landmark stripped down, floated away, soon to be forgotten. He often felt like his world, his private northeast, was being slowly demolished, bit by bit, memory by memory. Soon there’d be nothing left of the life he’d once known.

Finally, with regret, he allowed himself to be turned.

“Where to now, then?” Her eyes glittered like the stars above them; the skin of her neck was flushed a deep shade of red; her cheeks trembled. She was aroused, she wanted him.

“Fuck off, pet. I have to go somewhere.” He breathed deeply, trying to get his rage under control. Even a random act of violence had failed to clear his system, to give him that fix of blood and thunder he seemed to need more and more often these days.

“Take me with you. I’m game. Whatever you want: you, your friends. We can all have a party.” She was so eager to be abused, so keen to submit to even a hint of cruelty. What was wrong with these people? What was wrong with him ?

He imagined breaking her spine with his passion. He thought about cutting off her lips with a pair of scissors. He felt sick; he was dead inside.

That coiling sensation from deep within him had returned, but this time he could not ignore it. There was something going on, a feeling that he couldn’t even explain. He felt like crying. That was why he’d given the doorman a slap: because his emotions were running away from him, breaking free, and he needed to at least try to get them back under control. He was not a man who could allow himself to experience normal human emotions. Empathy, understanding, pity, mercy, redemption… these were not for him, not for his kind. He had been flensed of such concerns, a layer of epidermis surgically removed by a blade so keen that its edge was invisible.

The girl seemed to hover before him; her feet were raised several inches off the ground. Her bottle-blonde hair shone like a promise of something better and her eyes glittered again, this time even brighter than the stars. She reached out, reached inside, and Boater felt her small hand grip his ribs, pull them apart, and expose his heart. He heard it beating, beating, and the sound was so close that it was terrifying.

Then, as a crowd of revellers spilled out of another pub and onto the pavement, yelling and screaming and chanting football songs, the moment ended. The cage of his ribs sealed shut and his heart was locked away, where it belonged, deep inside the prison cell of his body. The vision, for what it was worth, had ended.

“Fuck off,” he said, turning away and stumbling along the stained footpath like a drunk at night’s end. His cheeks were wet; he was crying, but silently and trying to pretend that he wasn’t. For a moment, someone else had taken him over — someone real, someone normal — and he hated the feelings that weakling interloper was forcing him to endure. He had been invaded by normality, and it felt… wrong, unnatural.